Mistrial For Officer Who Refused To Go to Iraq

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

Published: February 8, 2007

A military judge on Wednesday declared a mistrial in the court-martial of the Army officer who called the war in Iraq illegal and refused to join his unit when it deployed there last June.

The mistrial means that the officer, First Lt. Ehren K. Watada, could be retried in March, a spokesman for the base said.

Lt. Col. John Head, the military judge presiding over the case, declared the mistrial after he rejected an agreement Lieutenant Watada had reached with prosecutors before the trial began on Monday.

Under the pretrial deal, known as a stipulation agreement, Lieutenant Watada, 28, who is assigned to a Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis, about 45 miles south of Seattle, acknowledged refusing to deploy and speaking out against the war. In turn, prosecutors dropped two charges related to comments Lieutenant Watada made in interviews. His potential maximum sentence, if he were convicted, would be reduced to four years in an Army prison from six.

A lawyer for Lieutenant Watada, Eric Seitz, has maintained that there is no dispute over what Lieutenant Watada did, only over why he did it. He has said Lieutenant Watada's actions amounted to free speech and civil disobedience protected by the Constitution.

Colonel Head has repeatedly refused to allow Lieutenant Watada to center his defense on the argument that the war is illegal. On Wednesday, after Mr. Seitz proposed that the judge require jurors to consider that Lieutenant Watada acted out of a mistaken belief that his actions were legal, Colonel Head declared the mistrial, citing confusion over the stipulation.

The judge, according to a statement released by Fort Lewis, became ''concerned that the stipulation amounted to a confession by Lieutenant Watada to an offense to which he intended to plead not guilty.''

Lieutenant Watada's conviction has largely been considered a foregone conclusion. But Mr. Seitz said the circumstances surrounding the mistrial, including the fact that the judge rejected a stipulation he had initially approved, could allow Lieutenant Watada to avoid prosecution altogether.